Star Trek: Insurrection (Special Collector’s Edition) (1998)

by | Jul 2, 2005 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews | 0 comments

Star Trek: Insurrection (Special Collector’s Edition) (1998)

Starring: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Levar Burton,
Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, F. Murray Abraham, Donna
Murphy, Anthony Zerbe
Directed by: Jonathan Frakes
Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment
Video: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio: English DTS, DD 5.1, English DD 2.0, French DD 2.0 Surround
Subtitles: English, Spanish, and English Closed Captions
Extras: Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda, three featurettes
(“The Star Trek Universe”, “Creating the Illusion” and “Production”),
seven deleted scenes, photo gallery, storyboards, original promotional
featurette, teaser and theatrical trailer, Borg Invasion trailer,
Easter egg, scene selection
Length: 103 minutes
Rating: ***1/2

The Next Generation cast returns for their third feature film in Star
Trek: Insurrection.  In this installment of the popular movie
franchise, Captain Picard and the Enterprise crew are given orders from
the Federation to remove six hundred peaceful Ba’ku residents from
their home world.  The Ba’ku planet has fountain of youth-type
powers that the Federation believes could be put to better use. 
Believing the extraction of the residents world violate the Prime
Directive to not interfere with the development of civilizations,
Picard leads a rebellion against Starfleet orders. Star Trek:
Insurrection is a decent entry in the line of Star Trek movie voyages,
neither being the best nor the worst among the ten films to date. 
The film does not have a memorable villain, or as much overall action,
as highly regarded entries like The Wrath of Khan or First
Contact.  However, it does employ an interesting storyline and
receives strong performances from the cast.  The improved audio
options and numerous bonus features make this DVD a must-purchase for
Star Trek fans.  Recommended.

The video quality of this DVD is excellent.  Images are
unblemished with sharp detail.  Black levels are consistently deep
throughout.  Colors are vibrant and bold with well-saturated
hues.  Picture defect mastering is solid with no major flaws or
digital artifacts.  The overall audio quality is also excellent
with the English DTS 5.1 track serving as the basis for this
review.  The soundtrack mix actively incorporates all of the
discrete audio channels.  Dialogue is crisp and natural
sounding.  The surround channels are aggressively utilized for
both music and ambient sounds, and include multiple split rear
effects.  The low frequency effects channel is robust and
powerful.  Present in about one-third of the DVD’s chapters,
tactile effects are present in the form of light to heavy impacts and
they originate from the sound effects and the music score.

Reference equipment used for this review: [Video
projector- Studio Experience Cinema 17SF; Projection screen- Vutec 103”
Silverstar; DVD player- V, Inc. Bravo D1; A/V Receiver- Sherwood
Newcastle R-963T; Speakers- BIC America Venturis; Tactile Transducers-
Clark Synthesis Gold; Video Switcher- Key Digital SW4x1; Cables/Wires-
Bettercables.com ]

 
– Calvin Harding, Jr.
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